Our little chicken coop in Progress!

[twfernandez]

Hi guys!

Just a quick Monday evening update with a couple of new pictures. I came down with something last week, so between running a fever for two days, work and the rain, progress was pretty slow this week - but everything(the weather included) is lining up to put the roofing on tomorrow, so I'm excited about that.



Here we have the east wall with the clean out doors - siding is hung, the doors are up for now, but they're coming down for paint/trim, then going back up with the hinges on top of the trim.



Same shot with the door closed. Getting the siding "lines" on the doors to line up with the rest of the siding presented a bit of a challenge, but it's pretty darned close.

I still have to frame and hang the storage doors, but I've moved that way down on the priority list so I can focus on getting the coop move in ready - I can finish the storage doors anytime, but the girls are growing so quickly!



Here I've hung the hardware cloth that separates the main run from the 4x8 area under the hen-house. There is an exterior door that we will use to access the run area under the hen house, and an interior door for the chickens - the idea here is that this is our "Chicken Jail" - we plan to use this space for introducing new birds to the flock, or quarantine, etc.
Right now, our Isa Browns are a couple of weeks younger than the Easter Eggers, so we'll be able to put them in the "Jail" from outside of the run using our door, then when they are ready, we can just open the chicken door and allow them to mingle on their own.
Also, this will help to prevent anyone hiding eggs underneath the hen-house, and we shouldn't have to crawl underneath for cleaning as frequently as if it were left open.



Front view of the Chicken Jail and the Chicken door. Since this section is on the interior of the run, and the run itself will be fully enclosed by hardware cloth(including the 12" buried,) I could have probably used regular chicken wire for this piece, but I have the hardware cloth, and I wanted some practice with cutting and hanging it -I've read where others accurately refer to hardware cloth as "devil wire," and I think I understand the sentiment.

I added two more loads of sand to the run this morning, so the run is now filled and the sand is nice and even throughout - I think the girls are going to love it!




And I finally have all of the structural and decorative corner braces cut, hung and painted!(Which means I can start hanging the rest of the hardware cloth this week!)

You can't see it clearly in these photos, but there was a lot of touch up painting that had to be finished, so I got that done today. Tomorrow, I've scheduled nearly the whole day for building, so I'm hoping to get the roofing up and the siding completed! Wish me luck!!

Thanks, will update as soon as we can!
T&S

 

[tbatz11]

That looks really amazing! I also want to do the same kind of corners on our run, I really love how they look!

Is there going to be a 2x4 under the coop where the storage area is (between the storage doors)? It looks like its sagging a bit.... or is it just me?

Let us know how the sand works out! I've read conflicting reviews on it an am not sure if i want to put it in the run when the grass gets eaten up.

Now, about lining up the lines in the siding....I have a feeling i'll be kicking myself for not remembering that when we built our cleanout door! All we did was check that the frame fit, we didnt try to see it after it was already made

Now its sitting and getting painted.

 

[whitney556]

That looks amazing! I love how decorative the pen looks The siding on your coop looks very similar to the siding we used for ours as well. Very stylish!

I'm curious about the sand also. I considered using it for our pen but went with pine shavings instead and put that in this past weekend. Now I have a rogue hen who refuses to go back into the pen, or into the coop at night

I guess she must not like it.

 

[twfernandez]

Hey all!

I don't have any new pictures today, but I am pleased to report that the roof is up! Having never worked with metal roofing before, I think it went pretty smoothly overall! Bent the trim in a few places where I overtightened the fasteners, and I had to make a couple of odd "patches" for the trim because I ordered 14" too short.

We really really wanted to beat the rain after having re-painted all of the run framing, and we just managed! Roof was finished at about 3:30pm, rain came in at about 6:00pm and poured all night! I checked the roof for leaks throughout and couldn't find any!!

Quote:
@tbatz11 - I am planning for 2x4's underneath to support the load and as "door stops" - I see the sag in the picture, but I don't think it's actually sagging - the bottom cut on the siding isn't exactly right, but I also think it's the angle - still, I'll inspect today just to be safe.

Quote:
- @whitney556 - thank you for the feedback! It's really starting to come together.

Quote:
Quote:
Will do! Having been uncovered by the roof for the last couple of weeks, I can tell you that it never once got muddy in the run(as opposed to all around the outside of the run, which has been very muddy with all this rain, something I hope to address in the coming months with landscaping..) - But I will definitely provide feedback on the sand!
We've got about 90% of the siding finished, then planning on knocking out the nest boxes and moving to the interior of the hen-house(floor, paint, electrical, roosts, etc.)
We're hoping that some of the girls will be able to move in by the end of next week or so. We may end up moving them into the hen-house before we've finished the hardware cloth for the run, and just leaving the pop-door closed until I get the run secure - just depends on our schedule.
We've got the 17 easter-eggers in a larger space now, but they are still growing, and the 4x5 "brooder" in the big shed is starting to look a little small - not to mention the fact that our Isa Browns are rapidly outgrowing their smaller brooder as well - the plan is to move the "big girls" into the hen-house first, then transfer the "little girls" to the 4x5 until we can integrate them all.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to do some more work this afternoon and tomorrow - will post pictures as soon as I have 'em!

Thanks again for the encouragement!
T&S

 

[twfernandez]

Wow guys! Sorry it's been way too long since my last update - we have been making progress, but I have been very busy with work, so I haven't made time to update this thread - sorry!

The good news: All of our chickens are doing well, and the 17 Easter Eggers have been moved in to the hen-house since the 16th - and OMG, they loove it! It's been so fun watching them run around and adjust to having so much space.
Since we moved the big girls into the hen-house, we were able to move our 10 "little girls" into the 4x5 brooder in the large shed - they are equally thrilled to have the extra space!
The bad news: We still haven't finished the build!

That said, we have made a tremendous amount of progress - In order to make room for our rapidly growing girls, we sealed off the pop-door with a piece of plywood and then completed the interior of the hen-house, so it is comfy and secure - there are a couple of small changes I want to make inside, but I'm waiting until the run is finished, this way I can let the girls out while I'm working on their house.
The exterior of the hen-house just needs trim and paint, which we're hoping to finish next week - this weeks project is finishing out the run so we can let the girls outside!

And now for the latest series of photos:



The roofing from underneath, inside the run, and from above, looking east over the hen-house.



No eave trim for the lower portion of the roof to facilitate better water run-off - we will probably add a gutter and a rain-collection drum later on, but for now, even with heavy rain, the water runs down the slight grade away from the coop/run and into the trees - there is one spot that puddles, again not near the run, but we'll fill that out eventually as well.



The first picture is washed out by the sunlight, but the front of the roof has full-length eave trim(second photo), and you can see where we've completed framing on the front nest box. Can't really see it, but the rear nest box is also completed, framed to be "identical" with the front.

Several angles on the nest boxes. The front and side walls are insulated, the lids are not, and we are going to need to add some weather-stripping(not the foam stuff the girls would pick at, something more robust) to prevent drafts during the winter.
Before letting the girls move in, we painted all of the interior surfaces of the nest-boxes.





Here we have a few angles of the inside of the hen-house. (Again, thanks to @skylavaulter for the idea on the layout!) The roosts are the same height on either side, and currently offer 20 feet of roosting space - they're removable for easy cleaning. The poop boards underneath will help with clean-up, and keep the nest boxes a little more private.
We toyed with using rubbermaid tote lids as removable poop-trays(bottom photo), figured they would be light-weight and easy to clean - I still like the idea, but the problem is, you can't just buy the lids, you have to get the containers too, and I'm already over budget, so for now, we're using butcher paper(which is working really well, so we may just stick with that - bought a big roll of it for $13 at Sam's Club, roll-out 10 feet for either side, attach with staples on either end, then when it's time for clean up, a pair of pliers pulls the staples, and I just roll the paper right back up again .. so far, so good!)
On the third photo, you can see where I've placed the light fixture for heat lamps in the winter. Just above that fixture, and to the right a little, there is an exposed rafter/support board - well, the girls made it into an official "unofficial" roost!

(Pics to follow .. )
Thermostat on the back wall - I've been watching the exterior/interior temps, and we've done really well as far as placement under the trees and insulation, since the inside of the hen-house stay between 8 and 10 degrees cooler than outside - today, it's 94 degrees outside, and its 80/81 inside - very comfortable, and plenty of air movement through the open windows and vents!




Here we have the rear wall with "awning" style windows. Much like the nest-boxes, these will require some weather-stripping and trim to make sure they aren't real drafty(especially with the roosting board right in front of the windows!)



And finally, two shots to show the permanent ventilation - on both the front and rear wall, just above the wall but below the roof, we left large gaps to ensure good ventilation - the openings run the full width of the wall(10 feet) and are 1" high on the front and 3 1/2" high on the rear. Attached poultry wire interior to help with predator proofing, though I'm not real worried as the openings are very narrow - I suppose a snake could get through, but we don't have much in the way of snakes on our property, and I'm not sure that presents a real concern, but I digress...




Finally - a picture of the girls! This isn't the best pics since I snapped it at night with my phone, but you can see some of the ladies roosting(including the ones up top on the unintentional roost!)
This is from their first night in the hen-house, and only a few decided to roost that night, though at this point, they all sleep on the roosts, and spread out fairly well!
You can also see the butcher paper, and where we've filled the hen-house with sand for the floor. So far it's been great - the girls enjoy it, it stays nice and cool during the day, and makes for some pretty epic dust baths!
My first cleaning went very smoothly with a home-made "scooper" - took about 15 minutes to do the whole interior, butcher paper included, and I'm sure the next time will be faster!
We built a 5 gallon bucket waterer(with lid) using the horizontal no-drip nipples(it's awesome, thank you to @aart ) and the girls learned very quickly how to use it.
We filled the nest boxes with a bed of pine-shavings, topped off with straw and some leaves - the pine shavings have held up okay, the straw and leaves have been been kicked/scratched/eaten/played with extensively, but I think that's to be expected at this point since the girls are too young to really "nest".
I don't have any more pictures right now, but I will post some as soon as I can! I will be sure to include better pics of the girls as well since they are big and beautiful!

Again, sorry for the delayed update, and the long winded "catch-up date" - I'll try and get on sooner with the next one!

Thanks,
T&S

 

[tbatz11]

You guys did an amazing job! I'm sooo jealous of how big it is! And I really love the yellow on the inside. I think i'll do that whenever our coop needs new paint on the inside. It looks so peaceful.

Our chicks have been in the coop for only 4 days (counting today) and i'm thinking we might need even more ventilation. Both windows, the chicken door and 2 vents have been open the whole time. The temp stays only a few degrees cooler in the coop than outside, but the humidity this morning was 30% higher inside. Not really sure what to do about that yet. The roof/ceiling isn't insulated and probably gets hot during the day. I'll have to do some research here on what to do.

I like how huge your vents are on the back side of the coop. And you're VERY lucky to have trees! We have one wall that doesn't have any windows so maybe we'll open it up some.

I see that you used chicken wire for the windows, do you think thats safe enough? I read so many horror stories about racoons eating through it that I was too paranoid to use it.

Also, how did you run power into the coop?

 

[twfernandez]

@tbatz11 , again my thanks for the feedback!

As for the chicken-wire/raccoons - yes and no. I too read a lot of the horror stories about chicken wire being so easy to get through, but I'm not very concerned at this point for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, overnight, all of the windows are closed, so the predator would have to get through the glass first on the front, or the siding on the rear. Secondly, during the day when the windows are open, the glass windows still have the window screen closed, so a predator would have to go through the screen(which I suppose would be easy enough, realistically,) and then through the chicken wire. This in addition to the idea that raccoons specifically tend to be more nocturnal makes me think the chicken wire for the glass windows is fine.
I probably will end up adding hardware cloth over the back windows in the future, because they don't have the actual window, just the awning, so during the day there is no screen other than the chicken wire.
Moving forward, for the really muggy summer nights, once the run is complete, the single window inside the run can stay open over night for additional ventilation, and because the run is completely enclosed in hardware and underwire buried to 12", a predator would have to get through all of that first just to get to the window.
At this point, I think I'm more concerned with snakes, because they could get through the "vents" easily - and I will have plenty of hardware cloth left over, as it were, so I may end up adding the hardware cloth to that rear vent as well.

Will update again soon!
Thanks,
T&S

 

[twfernandez]

@tbatz11 , Oops - forgot about your other question!

For electrical, tapped into an unused slot on our breaker panel at the house, installed a single pole 20 amp breaker and ran a feeder wire to the outside of the house(easy to do because the panel is on an exterior wall).
Buried electrical line (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Southwir...-Cable-Yellow-13055926/202316447?N=5yc1vZc57b) 12" deep to the hen-house, came up underneath the hen-house to the outlets, used the same wire to run under the floor, up through the wall to the light-switch, and then into the hen-house to the light fixture.
Because the switches and outlets are exposed to the elements, I used a GFCI as the first point in the chain, as it were, and used all weather-resistant outlets and bell weatherproof enclosures/covers:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Leviton-...et-White-R62-WT899-0KW/202993877?N=5yc1vZc33a

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Bell-2-Gang-Weatherproof-Flip-Lid-Device-Cover-5045-0/203638330

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Bell-2-Gang-Weatherproof-Flip-Lid-Device-Cover-5148-0/203597100

I did all the electrical work myself, except for adding the breaker to the panel - I had a friend who is an electrician do that part for me - I'm pretty confident with wiring switches/outlets/lights etc., but when you get into the breaker panel, I defer to a pro - if you're not confident to do the wiring yourself, I'm sure you could find a friend/contractor to wire it up for you at a fair price!

Hope it helps,
T&S

 

[tbatz11]

Our breaker box is inside, and in the basement. I'm thinking we might have to just run an extension cord from the deck to the coop when we need electricity.

 

[twfernandez]

@tbatz11

Quote:
While an extension cord will certainly get the job done, If you have an outdoor outlet on the deck, you could open the outlet box up and "tap-in" your new wiring there, then run a permanent wire to outlets/lights in the coop.

ttyl,
T&S